Inside a Dalek (feature)
Inside a Dalek, or The Anatomy of a Dalek, was one of the non-narrative but in-universe features published in Terry Nation's Dalek Special. Essentially an update on Anatomy of the Dalek from the first Dalek annual, it incorporated new concepts from the television series (such as Davros) and its illustration depicted a Grey Dalek casing instead of the 1960s Dalek War Machine, thus accounting for the vast technological shifts.
Although not accepted as a valid source by this wiki due to not, strictly speaking, being a story, it remains a highly noteworthy part of Doctor Who history as one of the most widely-reproduced glimpses into the inner workings of Dalek technology, straight from the pen of their creator Terry Nation.
Summary
The Daleks of Skaro's drive to create the perfect destructive machine has led them to improve the Dalek casing again and again over the centuries. The Space Intelligence Service releases a report of its findings on the current inner workings of the casing, though it remains incomplete.
Characters
References
- The Dalek eyestalk's eye is a scanner with telescopic magnification, infra-red night vision, and X- and Z-ray vision.
- The Daleks' audio-scanners are super-senstivie listening devices capable of hearing far beyond the spectrum of human hearing.
- The combat computor is a memory cell containing every known war strategy and combat situation in the Daleks' database, allowing the Dalek to react to any combat situation within microseconds.
- The photo-sonic cells record all the visual and auditory experiences of the Dalek, for instant retrievability.
- The environment chamber is the container in which the "living Dalek" is housed.
- Grav deflectors allow the Dalek to remain in gravity conditions identical to Skaro's at all times.
- Psych analysers give the Dalek an ability virtually indistinguishable from mind-reading which it can use to guess its opponents' intentions.
- The Dalek creature is incapable of speech; its thought processes are translated into voice by the vocal simulator, with the translator unit instantly translating the output into the language of the listener.
- The etheric transmitter-receiver constantly operates to feed the Dalek info beamed straight from central comment.
- The gunstick is actually a multi-range variable power destructor. It is capable of "perforing armour plating at a range of more than three miles".
- The control arm allows the Dalek to hold and lift fantastical weight thanks to a powerful vacuum effect.
- The element to energy convertor allows the casing to convert all the natural elements of the atmosphere into energy it can use to power itself.
- The auto-navigators allow the Dalek to pinpoint its exact location in the universe.
- The auto-repair circuits, linked to a computor, analyse fault and amage within the casing and automatically repair the damaged section if the harm is mild enough.
- The hostility sensors allow the Daleks to detect any hostile thoughts from other lifeforms.
- Daleks are equipped with a cryogen survival unit.
- Daleks possess an auto-destruct mechanism which they can use to become a gigantic bomb.
- The motive unit allows the Dalek to travel at great speeds.
Notes
- The assertion that the Daleks have no voice of their own and that the familiar voice is a processed computer-generated, while it is not unique, stands in contrast to many other accounts, most notably the original serial, where Ian Chesterton's voice becomes muffled into the Dalek voice as soon as he climbs into a casing.
